


What Was, What Is

by itsmoonpeaches



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang-centric, Air Nomad Genocide (Avatar), F/M, Friendship, Gen, Minor Sokka/Suki, Post-100 Year War (Avatar TV), Post-Avatar: The Last Airbender, Sokka (Avatar)-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25254637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsmoonpeaches/pseuds/itsmoonpeaches
Summary: “He’s the Avatar…shouldn’t we…shouldn’t we do something for him too?”Sokka leaned forward and grasped one of her shoulders. With a low voice he said, “You’re afraid Aang won’t catch a break.”She shook her head. The water splashed back into the bowl. “I’m afraid that everyone will forget about all the selfless things he’s done for us,” she remarked. “He’ll keep doing this for the rest of his life, Sokka. He already ended one-hundred years of war. Don’t you think Aang deserves something in return?”Sokka pulled his sister toward him until he clasped her in his arms. “You’re right,” he agreed. He let her go and gave her a grin. “I might have an idea."-Or, in the days leading up to Zuko's coronation, Sokka hatches a plan to thank Aang for all he had done for the world. It helps that everyone else is in on it too.
Relationships: Aang & Katara (Avatar), Aang & Sokka (Avatar), Aang & Suki (Avatar), Aang & The Gaang (Avatar), Aang & Toph Beifong, Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Suki & Zuko, Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Sokka & The Gaang (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Sokka, Toph Beifong & The Gaang, Toph Beifong & Zuko
Comments: 56
Kudos: 448





	What Was, What Is

**Author's Note:**

> What inspired this? I can't tell you until the very end, I'm afraid. Either way, Aang deserves more love than he gets. For real. Also, Sokka is apparently a very fun perspective to write from.

Sokka was exhausted. Beyond exhausted. Like, so exhausted, that he might as well have been asleep from the moment he opened his eyes. It might have had to do with the fact that the day before, he literally fell off a Fire Nation blimp and broke his leg on impact, dangled Toph from his actual fingertips while he thought they were going to die a gruesome death, and watched as the western edge of the Earth Kingdom burned to ash. During all of that, he had been hoping against hope that the Avatar would save the world.

You know, normal stuff. Dare he say, completely boring.

He groaned, trying to roll over onto his side, but then remembered that his leg was exceedingly difficult to move. Flopping onto his back, Sokka grasped onto the silky red sheets he laid on. For a second, he was on high alert. He was surrounded by enemy colors on enemy territory. He could hear the _squawk, squawk, squawk_ of enemy birds beating against the glass of the window. 

He shot up in bed, clutching at his thigh to make sure there were no extra bones that decided to become displaced. His hair brushed against the sides of his face, and he realized that it had been undone from its usual Warrior’s Wolf Tail. He scrambled for the hair tie that was on the bedside table. Blue, unlike everything else around him. It looked almost gaudy because of how out of place it was. 

Adrenaline pumped through his body, and then he wondered if this is what Aang must have felt like when he had awakened on that hulking, metal Fire Navy ship all those months ago. The kid must have been confused, desperate for answers, trapped in what looked to be a prison. Except this was not that.

It had taken a minute, but Sokka remembered himself. The familiar motions of looping his hair through the tie reminded him that everything he was experiencing was not some messed up dream that he had brought up on himself. At the very least, food was not eating people.

Aunt Wu might have predicted a self-inflicted life of hardship for him, but he was more than prepared to give her all the rude hand gestures he could produce in front of a mirror just to say he proved her wrong. He was laughing to himself at the picture he had in his head of her old, decrepit visage giving him the expression of a lifetime.

The grand oak double doors that led to the room he was inside of scraped open, and Katara walked in holding a porcelain bowl full of fresh water. She raised her eyebrow at him as he laughed at nothing.

 _Well, it’s not_ nothing _,_ he thought indignantly. It was hilarious. She just could not imagine what he imagined. Little sisters could be so annoying sometimes.

“I’m guessing you’re feeling fine,” Katara said with an incredulous look. She pulled up a stool next to the bed and sat on it, resting the bowl of water at her feet. “I couldn’t heal your leg as much as I wanted to last night because of how late it was, but I was hoping to fix it up a little more.”

“Go for it,” Sokka replied, leaning back into the pillows. “I still can’t move it.”

“I wish I was able to heal it sooner, but I can speed up the process,” she added. She bended the water from the bowl onto her palms, and they glowed a light turquoise.

Sokka let out a sigh of relief when the cooling sensation from her hands touched his throbbing limb. He observed her face, watching as concentration engulfed her features, and the azure eyes that they both shared. But there was something in the way she moved that he recognized as distraction.

“How’s Zuko?” he asked, concern floating to the surface.

“He’s a lot better. He’ll have a hard time doing some things on his own for the next few weeks,” she replied. Her hands moved to a different spot on his leg. The anxiety had not left her shoulders.

 _So,_ he pondered, _that’s not it._

“How’s Aang?” Sokka pressed.

He felt her fingers still and stutter for just a fleeting millisecond. Her mouth quirked into a deeper line.

 _Bingo,_ he thought with pride. Sokka was impressed at himself for knowing how his sister ticked so well. She was so predictable, and so, so, oblivious to her own feelings. Sometimes he wondered if he should be giving her more advice on the topic of love and relationships, but he supposed that was an ostrich horse for another day.

Katara sighed the kind of sigh that Sokka knew meant that it was going to be a painful, drawn out conversation if he was not careful. “I was— _am_ —so happy that he came back. He did it and it’s unbelievable,” she spoke. Her words were cautious, short. She was hiding something.

Sokka recalled their reunion the evening before. Or should he say morning? Suki had steered their stolen blimp back to the Fire Nation in the early hours of the day. The spirits-awful hours before dawn. By the time they had arrived with a chained Fire Lord Ozai in tow, the sky was beginning to lighten. With the way the rays of sun were refracted through the windowpane, he must have been asleep until past midday.

Of course, he and Katara had their own sibling embrace when he first stepped off the ship. He would be beside himself if she did not come to him at least once. He could barely move, after all.

Following a few insane explanations about how Aang learned to bend pure energy of all things, and had stripped away Ozai’s firebending, they had settled inside the palace. Zuko had ordered the Fire Sages to take his sister and father to some far-off asylum and prison, respectively. Sokka himself was more interested in finding a cushioned place to sleep.

However, that did not mean that he missed that Katara’s reunion with Aang was a lot different from the way she had hugged Suki and laughed at Toph’s bruising punch on her arm. Sokka could deny it all he wanted—and part of him did, but there was no way that he was that much of a jerk.

The way Katara greeted Aang was tentative, shy. There was something there that had shifted since a while ago. She held him the longest and the tightest, pressed her face into his neck. Sokka was not stupid. He knew the signs.

“But?” Sokka went on, now looking at his sister’s face and nothing else.

The water she controlled pushed again over his injury. “This is it, isn’t it?” she whispered, her lips only moving a fraction. “What happens now? Where do we go from here? What about Aang? We have to prepare for Zuko’s coronation that’s coming up in a week and Aang said he wanted to be there to support him. He said he has to go to Ba Sing Se to help the Earth King, and then talk to the colonies and…” She paused to take in a breath and let it out. “He’s the Avatar…shouldn’t we…shouldn’t we do something for him too?”

Sokka leaned forward and grasped one of her shoulders. With a low voice he said, “You’re afraid Aang won’t catch a break.”

She shook her head. The water splashed back into the bowl. “I’m afraid that everyone will forget about all the selfless things he’s done for us,” she remarked. “He’ll keep doing this for the rest of his life, Sokka. He already ended one-hundred years of war. Don’t you think Aang deserves something in return?”

Sokka pulled his sister toward him until he clasped her in his arms. “You’re right,” he agreed. He would be lying if he had not thought of it before. No matter what, Aang was like a brother to him, and he believed that family should always look out for each other. He was glad that Katara was the one brave enough to voice it.

He let her go and gave her a grin. “I might have an idea,” he beamed.

-

Part of the preparation process for a Fire Lord’s coronation ceremony included brand-spanking-new clothes. There was a lot of tradition that went into it, Sokka learned. It was a little annoying and amusing at the same time. Annoying, because he could not stand the number of servants flitting about the palace like lost ants all day. Amusing, because he got to watch Zuko squirm under the scrutiny of at least ten different tailors.

“What are you laughing at, Sokka?” Zuko demanded, gritting his teeth as someone altered yet another measuring tape around his waist. He was balancing on a wooden stepstool on the elegant tile of his sitting room. A man was crouching at his feet, sketching concept art for a pair of shoes.

“Nothing!” Sokka responded in a half-shout. He could not quite hide the mirth in his voice. “Just…enjoying these cherries I’m having,” he added as he plopped said fruit into his mouth, sitting further into the pillows of the couch he was on. He choked out a pit.

Zuko rolled his eyes. “Right and I’m sure you’re here instead of out exploring the capital with the others because you didn’t want to see this for your own entertainment.”

“That’s right!”

Zuko growled and Sokka laughed. He chuckled to himself, chewing around more cherry seeds with a thoughtful expression. In part, Zuko was right. He did come there to watch his friend suffer, but besides the added bonus of a good show, he was here for something else. It was all part of his plan.

“Say, Zuko,” Sokka said more calmly after swallowing the cherry. The seed bobbed around inside his mouth. He spit it out into his hand and tossed it onto a napkin. “You said Aang will walk out with you, right?”

Zuko frowned at him. “Yeah, why?”

“Got an idea on what he’ll be wearing?”

“I was thinking I would leave that to the tailors. I’m not that creative,” he replied, nodding to the people around him.

Sokka tapped his chin. “I think I could help with that,” he offered. “Have you thought of Air Nomad clothes?”

Zuko fidgeted. He looked uncomfortable. His eyes darted away to peer at the wall on the other end of the room. “I don’t know if we have any records of those. You know after…” He coughed. “All I have to go by are statues we saw at the Air Temples and what Aang was wearing before you guys came to the Fire Nation.”

Sokka had the sense to feel sorry for his friend. It must have been something Zuko was still working through mentally, if just talking about the Air Nomads was anything to go by. Not that he could blame him. He realized that after a century of blame and with ancestors that caused the mass genocide of one of his best friends’ people, it was not an easy thing to get over. Sokka himself knew that it was something he would not get over either. At least for Aang.

He reminded himself that this was why he was doing this. This was the thing that they could do for him.

If there was something Sokka had that Zuko did not, it was the knowledge that there was someone Aang looked up to more than anyone. Someone that Aang had lost.

He removed the paper from his back pocket, careful not to jostle his still healing leg too much. He unfolded it, staring at the messy image he had drawn. He had had a long enough time to memorize the details of Monk Gyatso’s likeness in the Southern Air Temple when Aang had bowed before it. Even more so when Sokka had seen his skeleton.

He extended his arm forward, ruffling the paper to get Zuko’s full attention. When the soon-to-be Fire Lord finally glanced back at him, Sokka said, “Try this design.”

It took a lot of critical interpretation for one of the dressmakers to understand what was on the sheet and a bunch of irritated whining from Sokka, (“No, _this_ is where the pant leg should be!”), but they were able to draw something with measurements good enough to start.

Both he and Zuko agreed to keep their little project a secret from Aang. The Avatar came in to get fitted with traditional Fire Nation garb a few hours later. They ignored his protests that he could wear his school uniform instead. The yellow and orange robes he had been wearing since the invasion were burned to a crisp anyway. 

They were able to keep up the façade pretty well, and Sokka was more than happy to keep threading Aang along for the ride. They were almost found out when Toph decided to call them out for lying about designs they were whispering about hunched over a table one evening. Sokka was able to slap his hand over her mouth at the last minute.

“It’s a surprise,” he ground out in her ear and her blind eyes widened in realization as he released her.

“I mean, why are you guys lying about the tea Katara made? I thought you said it was good!” she exclaimed afterward.

“Okay,” Aang spoke, dragging out the last portion of the word. A question that was not acknowledged hung in the air. He turned back to Katara and told her that at least he thought her tea was delicious, and she gave him the smile that Sokka noted was just for Aang.

Toph yanked Sokka down by his collar, pressing her lips to his ear. “Whatever you’re doing for Twinkle Toes, I want in,” she commanded.

She became the lookout every time Zuko and Sokka discussed adjustments and when Zuko talked to the tailors about what they thought would be plausible to sew. Suki became the one that gave her input on Sokka’s drawings to the tailors and dressmakers.

“They’re really hard for other people to understand,” she explained to Sokka with a resigned look. “I have to translate for them.”

Katara was content being the distraction. Sokka could not fault her for it. He noticed that as the days went by, she found it harder to leave Aang’s side. She still came to check on his leg and Zuko’s lightning wound, but it appeared to him that she was making up for imaginary lost time. She and Aang never talked about whatever it was that was going on between them, but they did not deny the company that they offered the other. It was both frustrating and endearing at the same time. He kind of, sort of, wanted to throw up.

“So, we’re just missing this one piece,” Suki informed them, pointing at the paper laid out on the table. “You haven’t asked anyone to make it yet?”

It was nearing midnight and two days away from the coronation. The four of them were huddled near a desk, once again reviewing their plans. They were informed that the robes were almost done, and just needed a few details finished.

The last time any of them had seen Katara and Aang, it had been at dinner. Sokka suspected that they had gone off alone to do Yue-knows-what. He trusted both to keep it innocent. He just hated that he had to trust himself to trust them in the first place. _They really should just talk already or I’m going to kill them,_ he thought to himself with exasperation.

Zuko shook his head as a negative.

Toph huffed. “Leave it to you guys to miss something crucial,” she muttered.

“Hey, I meant for it to be like this!” Sokka defended. He scratched the back of his head, glimpsing downward. “Well, I meant to start sooner, but it didn’t feel right. I want it to be perfect. Besides, I need help on one part.”

Suki hovered over the paper again, pursing her lips. “Which part?”

“This one,” he answered, lifting a finger on the sketch that the tailor had detailed. He adjusted his crutch under his armpit so that he could better look at it. “I’m not good at that kind of stuff. I need someone who can make it.”

Suki glared at him, crossing her arms, and bending backward on the wall of the kitchen. Her spine cracked as she stretched out. “Why didn’t you just ask someone to make the whole thing? We’re running out of time here.”

Sokka let out a breath. “The thing is,” he started, squinting over at Zuko with a grimace, “I wanted to make it.”

“What,” deadpanned Toph.

Sokka raised a hand in surrender. “Listen, this is important to me. I need to make this myself,” he clarified. “I’m the only one who knows what it’s supposed to look like. I thought that if I made it, it would be the most accurate and well…” He trailed off, not knowing what else to say.

Whatever he and the others had done so far, he knew that his sister was right. This whole thing was something that they could do for Aang together, but this was something that he could do for him alone. His instincts were telling him so. He needed to do this.

“Alright,” his girlfriend breathed. Suki smirked at him knowingly. “I know you’re stubborn and you won’t let this go…”

“Hey!” he cried.

She held up a hand. “So, I’ll make the part you need,” she added. “It so happens that I have a few skills with string work from my days as a girl on Kyoshi Island. How do you think we made our headpieces?”

Sokka flashed a gleaming smile at her. He kissed her noisily on the cheek, much to the chagrin of both Zuko and Toph. He made it a wet one just to irritate them more and relished at their collective grumbling.

-

Sunrise painted the sky through Sokka’s bedroom window with rosy pink and soft purple. He sat on the rug spread out on the floor, injured leg stretched out straight. He sagged forward with a moan. He had been up all night.

He rubbed at his eyes, dreading the burn that sat behind them. He could already feel that it was going to be a long day. It was not just any other day, though. It was coronation day. In fact, it almost felt like it was him being crowned to be the ruler of a whole nation rather than Zuko just because of all the ridiculous preparations he had forced himself into.

But it had all been worth it. He stared at his handiwork that rested in his palms. His fingers itched with callouses not from his years of utilizing weaponry, but from this crazy endeavor. He measured it out one final time, lengthening it next to his arm to see that it was long enough. He nodded to himself with a satisfied feeling when it rested just below his elbow.

“Perfect,” he said, fatigue filling him and defining him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and in another, Suki was shaking him awake. The two of them gathered their own attire and changed as quickly as possible. She assisted him when his leg hindered his balance.

They sneaked off to the chamber down the hall where the tailor and Zuko had told them to meet before Aang was to enter for breakfast.

Sokka elbowed past the thick curtains that blocked their view, the rungs holding up the fabric screeching on the rod above them. He limped with his crutch, rolling his shoulders with the Water Tribe armor he wore. Suki grasped his other side when she saw that there was a single step he had to go over. Her painted warrior makeup made her radiate with powerful beauty.

The tailor bowed to them and gestured to his side. Laid out on an extravagant divan were the clothes they had worked so hard to help create. They were golden yellow robes. The pants were of a similar shade, and the upper half was a natural, more formal progression of Aang’s former Air Nomad garb with a high collar and sloping sleeves. It was made of magnificent colored textiles, with a red sash to go around the middle. Even the low-cut boots that went with the entire thing looked fit for someone as important as an Avatar.

Sokka clutched the object in his hands, smiling to himself.

“Let’s get Aang in here,” he said with enthusiasm.

Another grin, and Suki burst of the room, rushing to find their friend. Minutes later, she was entering with a confused Avatar, her hands over his eyes. Zuko and Toph followed close behind, and Katara walked by Aang’s side.

“What’s going on?” Aang asked, confused. “Why are you guys acting so weird?”

“Come on, live a little,” Toph intoned with a laugh.

“I’m really not getting any of this and I think—”

Suki let Aang go and urged him forward with a gentle shove. Sokka watched as he blinked, readjusting to the light. His gray eyes landed on the clothing on the couch, and he thought that this was what it was like to witness an airbender forget how to breathe.

Sokka inched himself around him and offered what he had been holding onto all along. “Here, this is the last piece,” he said, voice quiet.

Aang gasped and took the object from him. He looked at it for a long time, awe in his eyes.

Sokka had spent a lot of time stringing together the necklace that looked like Monk Gyatso’s. He and Suki searched high and low for the right beads in the market, the right wood block to chisel, the right shaded thread. Suki had woven the three orange-red tassels that dripped below the largest round pendant in the center of the necklace. Sokka had carved the trio of swirls that represented the Air Nomads on the pendant. He was sure there were still splinters he had forgotten to pry out of his thumbs.

“Did you…you guys did this for me?” stuttered Aang. He had gone silent, his eyebrows knitting together.

“Do you…like it?” Sokka asked, suddenly apprehensive.

When Aang looked at him, there were tears threatening to fall. One escaped as soon as he smiled at Sokka, lips pressed together in a trembling line. He inhaled, struggling to keep his emotions in. “I love it,” he said. “You don’t know how much this means to me. I don’t know how to thank you.”

Sokka was the first one to gather the Avatar to his chest and hug him. “This is how we’re thanking _you_ , buddy,” he rejoiced. 

And then, hours later when Aang walked out with Fire Lord Zuko, Sokka clapped the loudest he had ever clapped. He bellowed words of celebration, and if he saw the admiration and love in his sister’s eyes when Aang was presented to the crowd, he never told either of them.

**Author's Note:**

> You've reached the end! Now I can tell you what the inspiration was. I have kind of wondered where the heck Aang got the amazing Air Nomad outfit at the end of the series. He definitely didn't have it before. How did they know how Air Nomad clothes looked like? Cue in Sokka, the only one that got a good look at Monk Gyatso's skeleton. He's also a proven carver (even though he's not very good at it). I'm sure he practiced a lot!
> 
> Thank you again and please leave feedback if possible!


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